More Microsoft Xbox 2 rumors are flying around about whether MS will provide backwards-compatibility with XBox? The latest rumor relates to one of MS's fairly recent acquisitions: Virtual PC. The latest version of the software to see release (v7.0) is apparently being used to test future G5 compatibility, the platform currently used for Xbox 2 test kits. On top of this, the Virtual PC native graphics card support is being handled by Microsoft's Xbox team (see our previous coverage). All this could just be coincidence, and Microsoft could just be planning to increase the capabilities of the Virtual PC application. It's an interesting theory and one I am sure Microsoft is pursuing if it doesn't have other firm ideas in mind. Sony hasn't suffered because of backwards-compatibility, and Microsoft would be foolish to not consider the same thing seriously for Xbox 2. Thanks to Gamasutra for the heads-up.

USER COMMENTS 36 comment(s)

First Post(10:20am EST Wed Sep 29 2004)Seriously, with the increase in power this should be okay, it should easily be able to cope with emulating XBox1 to allow backwards compatibility and I think it would be a pretty dumb move my MS not to go for it, In the long run it will achieve NOTHING positive if XBox 2 is NOT Backwards Compatible! - by FatGuy_UK

Re:FatGuy_UK(10:23am EST Wed Sep 29 2004)I agree wholeheartedly. 0_0 (amazing isnt it :p) Backwards compatability nowadays is needed, not just in the console field. Now if MS could just lower the price for live :P - by Gir

Wow…(10:42am EST Wed Sep 29 2004)A thread where I agree with everyone. He he. Ok, I know there's only two comments here, but that's still 'everyone'. Anyway, in my oppinion, consoles have to be backwards compatable – it saves time not having to switch between console one and console two depending on what games you want to play. Nevertheless, XBox 2 won't be out for a while yet, so we don't really have to worry about this much just yet. - by The Patriarch

Try multiple test servers(10:46am EST Wed Sep 29 2004)Microsoft is offering a free 45 day trial version of Virtual PC as a download from their website. You can access it at choose Products, then VMWare Workstation, then Try Now. - by tech

Teh Suck(11:52am EST Wed Sep 29 2004)First off this is for Fat Guy: Xbox live is damn cheap. 50 bucks for a YEAR of service that you know wont have lag because everyone is on broadband.

Second: I honestly doubt that the Xbox 2 will feature backwards compatability for one good reason. Both ps3 and xbox 2 will use new types of media and dependant on what that media is, it may not like the old games. However, it being M$, I am sure we will find a port on the back of a new xbox 2 that allows us to fork over another 50 bucks to plug in some sort of cdrom / dvdrom drive to use our old games. It honestly would be the smartest thing for them to do and i am sure they will because so many people dont wanna lose their old games, *cough cough halo 2.* - by urban

re: Gir(12:06pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)“Now if MS could just lower the price for live”

You've got to be kidding…

$50/yr. for this service is a steal. If you can afford $40/mo. for broadband service, there should be no reason why you couldn't afford Live.

- by JJ

Media(12:20pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)PS3 will use Blue-ray which is backwards compatible with all DVD formats. They have not said a word as to what xbox will use as a media but you can almost bet without a doubt it will be on some type of disc substrate. Which means the drive should have not problem to be able to read the older DVD technology they are using in the current gerneration console.

Another thing to note. I would just love to see the benchmarks even the highest end PC would put out attempting to emulate the Xbox infrastructure. We have slowdowns in even some of the best emulators for PSone because of the amount of particles it is capable of pushing compared to even the highest end PC infrastructure. - by BillyGoat

emulation(12:51pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)emulation tends to only be stressful because it depends almost entirely on the CPU so lets say your emulating an xbox instead of having a gpu soundcard and processor an so forth to do the work every bit of information is handled almost entirely by the CPU thus the cpu has to work much harder and needs to be many times more powerful then the system it is emulating

also xbox live is not expensive at all $50-60 a year is pretty cheap

and i for one could care less if the next generation microsoft console is backword compatibile or not because there wouldn't really be any true benefit and it would make it so poorly coded games for the xbox like splinter cell wouldn't run properly unless you do like sony did where they just put the ps1 hardware they needed and just have the ps2 switch over to that hardware ps2 doesn't emulate ps1 it just basicly has a PS1 crammed inside it

were you planning on throwing your xbox away as soon as you got the next generation microsoft console? - by SpaZ

BD-rom burners are bigger then a 60 inch projection tv and can't be cheap at all to make im not sure what it takes for HD-DVD but BD-rom burners are insanely big - by SpaZ

backword compatibility(1:01pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)one thing backword compatibility would do for the console is give it a big library to fall back on while the nexr gen games are being made for it but i really don't need this since i don't plan to move my xbox or ps2 away from my tv when i get the next generation consoles two-four years from now - by SpaZ

virtual PC(1:17pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)virtual PC will work on both windows XP home and windows XP pro they strongly advice you only run it if you have pro but thats just to get you to spend $200 more since i ignored that warning and installed it on my machine running XP home and it ran fine also most people have a misunderstanding about what virtual PC is all virtual PC does is offer X86 emulation of a PC that does not have any data on it you still have to own a copy of the OS you want to use it doesn't just magicly have them all preinstalled unless you buy a copy of virtual PC that says it does i am almost 100% sure the trial is just the bare bone software that will run just as a computer would if it had no OS installed unless of course you install an OS - by SpaZ

Right on SpaZ(2:56pm EST Wed Sep 29 2004)I suggest you burn a ISO of Suse 8, Mandrake Community, Fedora Core … for free. Or … Pick up a copy of W2K3 server evaluation from a cert manual, and stop by a warz site for a full key. - by tech

As to the Blu -ray being physically huge… BFD … have you ever seen the first gen CD burners? They were on the scale of the Server Pizza ovens of previous generations … things will get smaller and cheaper.

Also, any tech backed by M$ is something to be leary of to say the least. You have been warned. - by Thrudd

The Real Point of Xbox 2(11:21pm EST Thu Sep 30 2004)The real trick of the Xbox 2 has nothing to do with the processor, backward compatibility or media.

The Xbox 2 is a Trojan horse to bring MS into the home entertainment market. What if the Xbox 2 is a set-top box that inclueds not just games, but a DVD player, DVD burner, and Tivo capability through a variant of the Media Center version of XP?

Heck, throw in a built in Cable Modem, wireless base station, and a USB 2.0 port to connect a portable MP3 player, and now you have a portal to MSN's forthcoming digital music store, and Xbox live becomes part of MSN. The wireless could connect to speakers, and or maybe a vonage style box to offer VOIP service. Now MS has the entertainment hub – buy digital music, store it on the HD, transfer it to the portable player, play games (online), watch movies, download movies? - by Manny

Apple(11:30pm EST Thu Sep 30 2004)Jobs is so jealous… he is apparently going to create his own Mac console using the g5 processor also to compete directly against the windows 2000 powered xbox. - by applebox?

Apple?(4:36pm EST Fri Oct 01 2004)Well, if Apple and Sony put something together that can do all the stuff manny's talking about, more power to them. An Apple/Sony/Tivo/DVD-RW/PS3/Vonage/Airport/iTunes/iPod appliance? I'll take one. - by Dude

Dude(7:02am EST Mon Oct 04 2004)Not bloody likely – Apple and Sony are direct competitors in the Digital Audio market if Sony were going to create a media hub you can bet it would be compatible with their own NW-HD1, NW-HD2 and forthcoming devices of their ilk, hopefully not until they are supporting MP3 though!

And it would use the Sony music store and whatever the software is… the name slips my mind now… but apple will be nowhere near the Sony hardware!

Oh yeah… I never commented on XBox live so I dunno why the comments about that were directed at me at the start of this thread! - by FatGuy_UK

VPC blows(9:10pm EST Mon Oct 04 2004)…it sucks beyond blief.

Why would Jobs be jealous? I means eriously, the PC has the majority of market share so if he WAS going to be jealous he would have been for a while now.

If apple went into the console business it would DESTROY M$. I'm saying that as a Mac fan.

OK now back to reality. Who would seriously develop for a Mac console?? Its hard enough getting people to develop on their OS right now. Even though interest in OSX has boomed…I don't see a console on the horizon….ever.

Apple doesn't need a console. So it won't bother with one.

I like the Sony/Apple idea. Put me down for one of those when hell freezes over. - by TooL

Virtual PC and XBOX(1:04pm EST Sun Dec 26 2004)Um, can someone enlighten me re: being able to play an XBOX game on a standard PC. I hear you talking about Virtual PC (which I have) but is there some sort of decoder that will allow me to turn a Virtual PC session into a virtual XBOX session? Or is it practically impossible to play XBOX games on PC at this stage? - by Slim Biscuit

Virtual PC and XBOX(5:51am EST Sat Jan 01 2005)Nope. No XBOX in PC. It's just a way to have another pc running inside your PC. - by SomeGeezer

xbox emulation(8:46pm EST Thu Jan 20 2005)im trying to emulate an xbox on my pc im running w2k and i was wondering if anyone knows a way to emulate it - by jimmy

Backwards Compatabillity(4:42am EST Tue Mar 01 2005)Microsoft wont make Xbox2 Backwards Compatable because the wont as much money as possible so they dont make it Backwards Compatable so then everyone has to buy one to get the games they want. - by Annoymas

dick wads(10:30pm EST Mon Apr 18 2005)fuck you nerds you all dont have any lives so go fuck your game systems - by dick

He's not very nice…..(3:50pm EST Sun Jun 12 2005)Heh, I think the gal above is jealous of you guys….

Anyways, I wonder in all of this hubub how Nintendo is gonna do. Hate to admit that I might be a fanboy, but it can't be helped (don't get me wrong, I've got an X-box, PS2, and a heck of a lot more).

P.S. Anyone know where I can get a nice copy of the DOA 2 Ultimate intro. All the ones I've found are shoddy.

- by musicalmechanic

xbox in pc(4:46am EST Sun Aug 21 2005)im sureit is possible to emulate a bobox in vmware… just hack the prog so u can use xbox bios… be sure to write drivers wich the bios will reconize… had a little tweaking in the dashboard… and you get your pc-xbox console… now just wait for that slide show to start and enjoy… you can see a pic of the much-to-long-loading of halo2… or you can buy one for 140$ and play the game…Slim biscuit you never gonna see an xbox emulator that run as well as znes…

snes had clock speed of 10MHz (random number really dont know) so when you run it on you p3 500 you get 50 times the speed of the snes (plus snes is 16 bit against 32 for win) xbox is 733 so that means you want to have 36.6 GHz to run the game and intel and amd are not able to break 4.5 GHz speed barrier so forget it…

cpu will be 10240 bits before it reaches 36 ghz … i would like to grab one if that exist :) and i wouldnt play xbox games anymore since games on such a monster would be as realistic as real life is…

why play video games when you can play in real life? ok you need imagination and ppl laugh at you when you say : “hi im an half giant i got 4 copper and i want to buy a sword!” - by me-my-hand

LIYLIYH(10:54pm EST Fri Sep 16 2005)LHILIHILH - by ./M MM

Re:xbox in pc(10:00pm EST Mon Oct 03 2005)Dude there is no way you would need that kind of speed you can find it on maybe a server motherboard today but you would be runing some kind of game where the graphics are better than reality. Beacuse my computer runs halo 2 elumated fine - by RedWarlock

me-my-hand(11:53pm EST Wed Oct 26 2005)wtf are you on u dude, are you even from this planet, xbox runs on a 700mhz processor true?, where did you get the 36ghz processor from?, snes runs on a 20hz processor and is literally shit, xbox games that are emulated only needs a normal everyday pc to run it, preferrably 2ghz and up and a minimum of 256mb of ram, just because your pc is crap dont mean that only your imaginary pc will work dude, WAKE UP - by needgirls69

wat du you download(1:22pm EST Thu Dec 29 2005)where the @*#! do u download something to run xbox games (from the disk) on ur computer? someone answer - by udontknow

Reader Comments

Donald DUCK

OKAY …………… HERE IS ONE THING YOU CAN DO WITH AN XBOX EMULATOR
!**** LEARN HOW TO MAKE A USB XBOX CONTROLLER AND CONFIGURE TO WORK WITH YOUR PC then ….;. you plug it in and then start the emulator then click on the thing that says controller then it should be configured already FOR YOU ,GET IT…….. TRY THAT OUT ,,,, The Only thing i do know about is that if you were going to make one then you wood need to ,,, 1. splice the wires!!! 2. leave the yellow wire unconnected 3. when you hook it up to your pc it should detect the device ps. when it says the thing has no retaltionship for the driver and the windows ver-sion><>
=yOU ARE USING then just click install anyway and ignore the message
also you may need to look up on google for the drivers for this device ….. “the driver name is {XBCD then vrs___ “gampad SOFTWARE …..
TRY THIS TO SEE IF THAT HELPS ANYTHING
<><><><><><><>FROM MASTER DONALD DUCK <><><><><

djdilbat

Teh Suck <<<<<<<<<< this is too you dumb ass the reason you pay for xbox live is because they offor dedicated servers and thats why you dont get lag, you dont need brodband too get live you need an xbox too get live you fucking tit.